An Overview of the African Slave Trade

This overview of the African Slave trade is a brief look at two branches of African slavery, the Atlantic and Indian Ocean branches. The former – the Atlantic trade, is the better known of the two, and has tended to inform the popular perception of this enormous chapter of African and global history. It is often not fully appreciated the extent to which slavery on the east coast of Africa affected the continent of Africa, and the difficulties of abolition experienced by the likes of Doctor David Livingstone. This episode covers both branches, but dwells in more detail perhaps on the East African branch, simply because this aspect of the trade is so little understood.